Yiddish-language Holocaust literature belongs to the earliest of the genre and exhibits specific characteristics. For instance, the extermination of European Jewry was named khurbn (“loss,” “destruction”) in Yiddish – a designation that can be traced back to the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem (586 BCE and 70 CE).
1. Introduction
The terms Holocaust (from the Greek holokaustos, “entirely consumed by fire”), Shoah (Hebrew for “catastrophe”) and khurb…